1/ my reading at 'sfu lunch poems' on 17 dec 2014 turned out much more successful than i had thought. i read 4 pieces: 'immigration,' 'nine detours of the yellow river,,' 'waiting' and 'farewell talk: for yuan hongqi and liu yu.' one audience said my poems made her cry on the spot. after the two of us finished reading, there were very interesting questions raised and answered. the best reading experience i have had thus far as a poetry author;
2/ my ms of a chapbook titled 'origin of the letters' has just been accepted for publication as an e.book by beard of bees press;
3/ i have recently finished translating the second book by Zhang Xinyue, notes about abundance 《丰盛笔记》, which reads like a collection of (mainly reflective/philosophical) poems. probably my PP Press is to publish it as well, but the author says she may have something added in a poetic form;
4/ i have just received another 12 testimonials/interviews for Zhang's first book create abundance 《创造丰盛》, which i have been translating into english since a couple of weeks ago. the author plans to replace the old 11 testimonials with these 12 interviews, which are very lengthy and cannot be finished anytime soon. hopefully i can complete the two books by the end of next month, and the publication dates for the two books have to be postponed accordingly.
5/ with my worsening health (esp. eye and knee problems), and other troubles which have kept haunting me one after another all my life, i simply cannot function literarily as i long to. besides, i am moving from one house to another...
6/how i wish to have some peaceful time to write a few more poems! i never have even enough time to make poetry submissions. what will 2015, the year of the goat, have in store for me? ...
Monday, 5 January 2015
[archived]: Poems by Changming Yuan © - 2/2013
To Mars: A Modern Sonnet
How do we love thee? Let us count the ways:
We love thee to the very limits of high-science
The boundaries of technologies, the frontiers of
The human conscience; in particular we love thy
Art of work on a mother feeding her baby in a
Shelter, a sheep boy driving his little herd to the
Valley, or a crowd of country lads celebrating a
Wedding. More important, we love the way thou
Help us to get rid of all extra food processors
In the human shape: the poor, the sick, the weak
The old, all wanted or unwanted others, above all
We love the way thou have become a real game as
Bloodily vivid as a movie on a vast colored screen
Thousands of miles far, far away in an other world
The Moment My Soul Becomes an Electron
I find myself lost in a space of dark densities, where
The sun wind keeps blowing hard in all directions
Travelling as fast as light with other fellow
electrons
I recognize few of them as my former acquaintances
Before swarming into antennas, sensors, end users
We all slough off our clothes made of digital codes
As we fill in every blank with our shapeless bodies
The whole world trespass into a parallel universe
While resurrecting at every switch turned on
Protrusion
Before you change your heart
And throw away the old one
Nothing your new heart is hating
Will depart or can be skinned off
Before your laser-cleaned pupils sprout
In your eyes, all foreign stains returning
Nothing your new eyes are attracted to
Will arrive, forgotten to shed tears on
Thinking for Too Long
You realize you have lost all your directions
Besides a shoe lace
You see, then will reach the spot to break free
From your skinned shape
Meditation is the clothing you have been wearing
As a doer, the practice of Initial Thoughts
Therefore, you keep thinking for seven days
It can be anything that is nothing
But the Initial Thoughts
Whim in, whim out
Penetrate into the wall
Around your selfhood
When Burying Me: for Allen Qing Yuan
First, remove all my clothes and masks
That I have been tired of wearing, skinned off
The tattoos on my chest, my heart, my soul
I have kept as my secrets. Then send me
Into the resomator like an alchemist, with the
Words I have used most often, the images
I have created and collected in my mind
Burn me as the Dao God did the Monkey King
With the purest fire from hell, from heaven
Tongues of blue gas, or red electricity
Sizzling, I will enjoy being kissed first and
Last, by my own words, my own metaphors
Fish
If you could, would you become a fish
That can swim, freely in the water, but without
Being able to touch the horizon? --I don’t know
If you could, would you become a whale
The king of the ocean, the ocean of words
For instance, the most powerful? --How powerful?
You wait for all other words to feed you
Like planktons, or swallow other fishes like similes
Metaphors, because you are big. –Yes, very big
If you could, would you become a blue whale
Whose calls and songs can reach afar, far
Beyond a civilization? –Who can hear me then?
Free Sonnet: Cybersburg Address
In the 1950s, our uncles brought forth
A civilization, conceived in electronics
And dedicated to the cause that all
Machines were created to be equally apathetic
To humans when a message was sent
From a lab at some campus, which can
Think logically, but not respond emotionally:
Whether you like it or not
This semi-being would never speed up
A moment even though you are dying
Nor will it slow down when it is to crash
Neither a smallest smile to hear
The great news, nor a smattering of
Sadness over the loss of your dearest
It keeps working at the pre-determined pace
Always indifferent of the people
By the people and for the people
Until we all perish with the earth
Father’s Soliloquy: For YCM
The other night, before the cock crowed, or
The crow cocked out of darkness, a yellowish
Shape stalked in vision, as in blank verse
‘Mark me,’ it says, sounding almost exactly
Like my late father. ‘Lend thy very serious
Hearing to what I shall unfold.’ Suddenly alerted
I got up among figures, between dream and sleep
‘When you were a teenager, I hated you so much
For looking at me always with your eye whites
Giving me an ugly face each time I talked to you
So much so that I cursed you numerous times in
My dream for being such an unworthy son; I often
Doubted if you were my own flesh until you grew
Into a normal loving adult, making me feel guilty
All my life; also, I was suspicious of your mom
Betraying me, not only in heart but also in body
I almost caught her making love with some guy
On our own bed - -You still remember that small
Apartment we used to live in? Among all my dadly
Secrets, these two I want to reveal to you first
Next time, I will tell you more about the limbo
Between hell and heaven, with the lightest word
Which might harrow up thy spirit, burn up thy
Blood…’ now the cock crows, and I must vanish
Where You Were Born
Beside an old thick y-shaped poplar stump
At the foot of Mount Big Wok Top
In a village, on the other side of this world
You were born in a jalopy Ford pickup
Whose driver was a stranger to your clan
Who had had too much of a horse’s urine
Among ashes of an unknown nuclear war
That had destroyed a whole civilization
Based on antimatter, anti-electrons,
anti-souls
Actually, you were born in a growing bubble
Rising from the bottom of a lake, like a new idea
Floating on the water, as invisible as your
breath
From under a rock protruding into a vast field
Full of wild poppies, where autumn whistles
Aloud, as if to greet heaven, you were born
Untitled
1
Detour can turn out
A real short cut
To your destiny
With final findings
More refreshing
More fascinating
Notes from Extraterrestrial
Civilizations
1/ God is nobody
But a superman
Who has come among us
From an other civilization
That may have gone astray
In a different space of time
2/ The human face
On the Mars is meant
To tell that we have
Detracted ourselves
To see it crying afar
Beyond our own world
3/ Hollow as is, the moon
Is an alarm clock
Hanged closest to us:
It will never ring
If we fail to set it
At the right time
Inner Harvest
In the little backyard
Of my soul’s residence
Grows a plum-apricot
Tree that bears so much
Fruit every mid-summer
I can treat more than
Passers-by, more
Strangers than I could
Have sold it
Through the neighboring
Market in case it might
Fall and rotten
During a nightly storm
Modern Times
God has long been dead
Hero has also vanished
All supermen and superwomen
Are returning to their own worlds
Except animals that are left
alone, lonely
On this shrinking planet, like
the hooligans
On the street, like the villains
at the corners
Of the office, like the
distressed, disabled, dislocated
As presidents, prime ministers,
legislators, judges
And, given enough time, we are
going to prove that we
Are all no more or no less than
earthlings, who will destroy
This little blue ball, or be
destroyed here, unless the few lucky
Ones are able to depart from our
home world, somehow, sooner than later
‘
Should You Allow
Should you allow us to live, let
it not like robots
Running and working around the
clock, to give you
All the comfort and convenience
available to human
Masters. Should you allow us to
live, o let us live
With the kind of freedom you
enjoy, the equal rights
And democracy you are talking
about so aloud
So that our tears and sweat will
become less salty
Than our blood, our eyes less
murky than our visions
Then even the food and products
we make would warm
Your hearts. Don’t try to make
love with us only to fulfil
Your sense of conquest, or beat
us mad, containing us
Whistling your dogs of war upon
us when you have
A nightmare. True, like robots we
may not be entitled
To your human rights, but even a
cornered robot rabbit will bite back
Someday, somehow, like a treaded
cobra, like your fore fathers
Sunshine
Sunrise or sunsetting
Whenever the sun invades into the
vision
Of the human eye, there are
always shadows
Moving slowly, like water
overflown
From the Styx into all the cracks
and
Crevices of the ground, like the
darkness of
Last night shredded into myriads
of patches
Patches that can be used to wrap
dreams
Time
Is an artificial universal wind
That keeps blowing steadily
Towards the abyss of autumn
Where all leaves and branches
Even uprooted stumps and trunks
Will become decomposed
The Origin of the Cosmos
Is nothing but a cell
Of nothingness
That divides into time
And space, the two that began
To produce everything
With or without
Shape, light, or weight
During its initial fission
Meaning
Borderless is dream
Meaningless is life
Neither is worthy
Unless each finds
A solid expression
In a thought process
Under a stroke of
The painting brush
Behind a line of words
Or around a note of music
a modest request: to Gregor
Robertson
(This is an open letter to the Mayor of Vancouver, regarding the City Hall's plan to re-designate Marpole neighborhoods into a high-density zone)
Dear Sir, Your Honor, Mr Mayor, we have been
living in this city and paying property taxes for
the past 17 years (without a single minute of
delay), because we love it as one of the world's
'most liveable' realms, but now you and your
colleagues seem to be committed to downgrading
(This is an open letter to the Mayor of Vancouver, regarding the City Hall's plan to re-designate Marpole neighborhoods into a high-density zone)
Dear Sir, Your Honor, Mr Mayor, we have been
living in this city and paying property taxes for
the past 17 years (without a single minute of
delay), because we love it as one of the world's
'most liveable' realms, but now you and your
colleagues seem to be committed to downgrading
our environment by changing
many districts, our
Marpole in particular, into huge hords of hords
of rowhouses, townhouses, courthouses in an
unfair, unwise, unjustifiable, unpopular fashion
as many of my fellow denizens have called your
heed to; meanwhile, with an almost guaranteed
term in office, you are showing no understanding
of our concerns (though we are all your voters)
let alone sympathize with our loss of quiet enjoyment
of tenancy in the area; most blatantly, you have
remained so arrogant as to turn a deaf heart to our
protests, not even to have enough democratic
courtesy to answer our greetings, our letters
emails, phone calls, as a polite stranger would
readily do to a fellow human in the wild wild world
nevertheless, we give you the benefit of doubt, as we do
Marpole in particular, into huge hords of hords
of rowhouses, townhouses, courthouses in an
unfair, unwise, unjustifiable, unpopular fashion
as many of my fellow denizens have called your
heed to; meanwhile, with an almost guaranteed
term in office, you are showing no understanding
of our concerns (though we are all your voters)
let alone sympathize with our loss of quiet enjoyment
of tenancy in the area; most blatantly, you have
remained so arrogant as to turn a deaf heart to our
protests, not even to have enough democratic
courtesy to answer our greetings, our letters
emails, phone calls, as a polite stranger would
readily do to a fellow human in the wild wild world
nevertheless, we give you the benefit of doubt, as we do
god, honoring your good
intentions, expressed or hidden
but on behalf of my distressful family, tenants and
neighbors, i am writing this in hope of getting a reply
but on behalf of my distressful family, tenants and
neighbors, i am writing this in hope of getting a reply
a simple utterance from
you. yours most sincerely
most respectfully, mike yuan, a fellow vancouverite
-- are you listening at all?
most respectfully, mike yuan, a fellow vancouverite
-- are you listening at all?
Mango
Textured with
Presented in the shape of
All female tenderness
As smooth as sleek
As fantasy, where, and whereby
Let
Man go
Entering Adulthood: To George and
Allen
The most important tip for you,
Sons
Is to forget all the tips any
father
Any book, any computer can give
you
About this world, but just
remember
This: the moment you step
Out of the boundary of our little
home
You will have to remain
On high alert, even while
dreaming
What you will cross is a
snakeland, where
There is as much sunshine, fresh
air
As many blue skies, green leaves
Fragrant flowers, handsome
Human figures, as cobras, mambas
Taipans, adders, kraits and
vipers
Y: Yellow Musings
Gold, lemon, butter, rapeseed
flowers:
Pre-positioned, you function to
lead
A whole column of evils as in the
yellow
Peril, bastards, bellies, dogs,
fish, guts
Journalism, heels, even men and
pups
After words, you will become as
noble
As imperial, as royal, or as
Chinese
Yellow. That makes all the
difference
Between a noun and an adjective
Between Chinese and English
Notice to End a Tenancy: for
Steve Mondor
Hi there, I am publishing this
short poem
Not because I truly need to bribe
you
Into moving out of the house of
my heart
(As you proposed – I am not sure
if you
Meant what you were saying), but
because
I want to voice my tribute to the
way
You have served 2 terms for the
country
We both love, and kept fighting
against
Posttraumatic stress disorder we
both hate
Indeed, by becoming part of my
poetry
Will you give me more time to
focus on
My poems as you on your
customers’ cars?
Power of Poetry
Although a little
Shabby shelter
Mostly for myself
Sometimes for
My family or friends
My poetry has become
A public hall of fame, where
Even a total stranger
Even the most
Dangerous snake
Would try to
Find tenancy, just
As would those
As famous as mayors
Presidents, and hey
How about you
Dear Sir/Ma’am?
Across the Land under the Rule of
Law
All rules and laws
Are the stout fence
Around our residence:
It is a great deterrent
To every respectful passer-by
But no more than
A wall made of mid-air
To a blatant trespasser
Snakeland
Probably in one of your dreams
Probably at a relocated zoo
Probably on a less trodden trail
Probably between two words
Probably behind the shadow of an
arrow
Probably before making a u-turn
Probably after entering an office
Probably from a moving picture
Probably under the morning glows
Probably beyond the autumn lake
Probably near the melodies of
spring birds
You may be bitten by a snake
Poisonous or otherwise, and
Since then, you would be
Strangled to a slow death
Like me or her
Y: the Aptonym of Changming Yuan
If the name is not right,
the speech will carry no might – Confucius
Changing or charming
My given name is so often
Misspelt (as my family name
Which is sometimes mispronounced
Intentionally or otherwise)
That the language has definitely
Failed me in this foreign tongue,
just
As Confucius warned me
As early as two thousand years
ago
Unlike Fairbank
The tremendously rich banker
Unlike Cherish Hart
The particularly famous cardiologist
Unlike Jack Armstrong
Probably the greatest baseball
player
Unlike Laura, my loyal lawyer
Or Dennis, your dandy dentist
Indeed, we have long
Forgotten the true name of
God, so our language is
Bound to go nowhere
Except a few rare
Cases for or
against aptonym
Small vs Big
Most of the time
I am so small
As a nerve cell
Embedded in my
Self-consciousness
But sometimes
I grow so big
As the whole
Universe, where
Each of my
Self-cell becomes
A star in a
Distant sky
Or otherwise
Mirror vs Water
Both can collect
As much light and
Imagery from beyond
Their frames, while
The mirror stores
Everything in its shiny
But skin-deep surface
The water keeps all
Its reflections murky
Deep in its heart
A hen party is held
Around a sitting duck
While there is a bull meeting
Where you can see the elephant
Getting the goose when it tries
to tell
The difference between the sheep
and the goats
Farther away, a black snake falls
down
Neither fish, flesh nor fowl
Smelling a rat somewhere
As you are being showed the lions
Ready to take the bull by the
horns
Until the cows come home
While learning about birds and
bees
I feel ants in my pants
The cat’s got my tongue
Hey, I do not mean to chicken out
Or clam up on these dog days
Rather, I would try to be an eager
beaver
Hold my horses
When I have a cow
That’s what a little bird told me
About how they made a beeline for
Pigging out
Before it rains dogs and cats
Sometimes in Life
There are days much longer than
months
Weeks as everlasting as forever,
and
Months even shorter than hours
When you feel envious of every
other
Human being, when you prefer not
to
Have been born, or would rather
be anyone
But yourself, when you are going
through
The kind of hardship only you
know how
Unbearable, or the kind of happiness
which you wish to eternalize or
Terminate at this moment
In your life, but still, you have
to
Face, to feel, to flee or fight
Personality Overdrafting
Born with a deformed heart muscle
You are as timid, introvert and
cowardly
As a little quiet chick, but all
your life
You have been trying to play
tough, forcing
Yourself to be tough-minded,
tough-bodied
Like an iron fighter rooster in
the legend
Until now your worsening ischemia
Drives you into your old
premature selfhood
With cardio neurosis, trembling,
all
Thanks to a tenant, a sociopath,
a rattlesnake
More evil than Satan, whose
greatest joy
Is to destroy you as a petty
landlord
Of a rental property full of
foreign words
Solitude
Just as the moonlight
separated Li Bo
from his drunk shadow,
no other than his other self,
the only human figure
who could understand him,
so the darkness of last night
has compressed all the words
and metaphors in my writing
into a single sheet of paper,
which
I can use to wrap my inner being,
flying it
into the morning glow
like a folded paper dart
towards the setting sun
To a Tenant of My Heart
Wondering how all little cherry
flowers
Have changed into large hairy
leaves
In front of my residence, I felt
bitten as if
By a vicious viper in the shape of
a
Handsome human, like a tall
mountain
Of darkness collapsing, falling
upon
My slanting shoulders; no, more
like
A true snake never letting off
its teeth
On my body and soul, while trying
its
Very best to strangle me into a
slow
Death, here in the westside of
Vancouver
Where neither the 9-1-1
professionals
Nor the tenancy arbitrators can,
or
Even will rescue me as a home
owner
The Jiujielity of Liknonomics
Together with fengqing
Damas use all
Kinds of guanxi to
Go
and look, never
Afraid of chengguan
Or shuanggui as they
Explore every geilivable
Dollar issued by chinemerica, like
People
mountain, people sea
Between them: we two who and who?
Yes, no money no talk!
My Fortune Teller Says
According to the eight Chinese pictographs
Set right at the moment of my birth
My original being is actually a huge body
Of water, predetermined to move
Around like a strong stream, with an
Ambitious and transparent heart, I was meant
To find great joy in traveling through woods
Absorbing metal elements along the way
Until I join the western sea, but I should
I would lead my inner
selfhood
Out of my small rented room
To the Fraser River Valley Park
To let it play with other dogs
Running and jumping wildly
Catching the ball each time I threw
Into the air, the tree shade, the ditch
The bank, the water, and sometimes
The ridge, where it sometimes stopped and stood
Looking beyond the horizon, as if to join the wild
Becoming one and the same with the little could
Drifting freely around, under the western sky
Genuine Genesis
Created in holy His image
Adam was in fact a gay
Who loved Satan more than himself
While Eve’s sexual partner was also
The handsome serpent, the real
Father of all her children
Equally noteworthy, it was not
Satan who seduced the woman
To taste the apple, but the first man who
Forced her to eat a whole onion
Because he admired its layers
Of layers of skin, so inspiring
As clothes and masques he would like
Each and all of them three to wear
To explore, even to die with
Jaegaring
Hidden in the backyard of
Every heart is a corner of hell
Walled with human feelings
Once you demolish the building
You will readily find heaven
Right above the ruins, which
You may never hope to see, touch
Hear, smell or taste, but where
You can relocate your inner being
And live happily ever after
As long as you choose to
Y10: Be
You had been before
You were, and since then
You have been, although
You could, you might, you would or
You should have been, now
You are, and shortly
You are going, to be or not to be, of course
You can, you may, you will be, but if
You must be
You are to
Be-come, which is being
Seeing
Through the kaleidoscope of
Your mind, you will find the very most
Beautiful scene, where you will see
Neither brilliant colors, nor changing shapes
Nor graceful lines, nor even bold light
(Of course nor shadow or darkness)
But you can gain a good and solid peep of heaven
In a little cloud between sea and sky, or
Unknown trees beyond the valley, on the hill
Hearing
Here are the semi-finalists
From all groups participating in
The first contest of sounds:
Firing
of guns, cannons and missiles made by Lockheed Martin
Tingling
of a stream running from Himalayas
Singing
of orchids in an Emei valley
Humming
of a female being fucked on the beach
Giggling
of black toddlers
Chanting
from a Buddhist temple
Chirruping
of birds in Yani’s light music
Thundering
steps in Beethoven’s number nine
Hark, the world champion of sounds
Is…
Smelling
How would it smell
If we put together in a library
All the essentials of
The French wine made 5 centuries ago
The Maotai from the Tang Dynasty
One hundred perfumes
Ten thousand flowers
As many Chinese as French or Italian gourmet courses
The air from the deepest valley in Tibet
The purest eggs and perms of Nobel prize winners
The tears from the most excited love-makers
Perhaps some freshest paper bills from the Federal
Reserve
Then, and there we would feel like throwing out
As if thrown into heaven, or hell
Tasting
Sweeter than honey
Sourer than green apricot
Saltier than tears or blood
Bitterer than spleen juice of a bear
Hotter than Mexican chilly
Juicier than watermelon
Crisper than newly fried chips
Is, is this love, unfulfilled or unreturned
Something like the left-over from
The feast held in Eden last year
Touching
While hiking in the wild
I picked it up on the trail
Hard like a diamond
Sleek like a mirror
Tender like a cherry bud
Soft like rubber mud
Cool like glacier water
Hot like larva
That I tried to manipulate into a word
Hoping to wedge into the little crack
On the ladder standing high
Against the Babel Tower
The Death of a Poet
Not to emulate Empress Wu Zetian
Who made a unique Chinese character
For herself, an all-powerful name, by juxtaposing
The sun and the moon or, rather
Yin and yang together, right above
The sky, the entire human space
He killed himself just to add
One short line to the English canon
By pumping out a couple of words from
The innermost blood clots
Behind his Chinese chest
Walking with Father: For Yuan Hongqi
One thing I forgot to mention, Dad
Is I intentionally moved either before
Or behind you, each time we happened
To be walking together. That way, you could
Neither pinch my arm not slap my face
So readily; otherwise, you would have to
Embarrass yourself if you ran forward
Or waited to do so, as you tried to
Educate me in anger. Since my departure
From my home town beyond the pacific
How often have I hoped to walk again, just once
Side by side with you, getting or offering support
Whenever either of us needed it
But now I could only follow your footprints behind
Step by step, while you wait to beat me in heaven,
smiling
The Kite
When still a village boy
Far beyond the pacific
Often did I run as fast as I could
Against the southern wind
To keep my kite high in the sky
Now swinging around, ready to fall
Like the paper bird I used to fly
I saw no-one but my own shadow
Trembling non-stop on the ground
The Portrait of an Artist
Unlike the monkey in a zoo
That enjoys picking lice
From his own untidy fur
You prefer to use the short beak
Of your inner being to peck out
Every worm in the old apple tree
Still growing in the front yard
We Are All Bats
Self-confined in a huge cave
Walled with our own ignorance, and
Blind as we are, we navigate in darkness
Detecting directions with our sonar of shriek
While trying to fly like real birds
Although we are earth-bound mammals
Although there is a whole open sky outside
Life Cycle
We all begin as tiny eggs
As we grow, we slough off our
Tattooed, tabooed selfhoods, and masks one
After another, using our little spike-
Like hairs to deal with our environments
While crawling slowly along the way
Until we become totally self-confined
Within the enclosures of selfhood, where
We pretend to meditate like Buddha
As if to prepare to become a butterfly
Fluttering freely in heaven, like Zhuangzi
Stillness
No, it was
It is not a bird
That has just flown by
But a leaf
A spectre
A whim about a bird
That can actually
Never fly away
From your heart
Flapping like a bird
Womanhood
Just calculate this:
How much blood
She has to shed
Every month
Every year
To retain her femininity
During her lifetime, even
In peace, while all you men
Have to shed
Sweat only
Before the Harvest
All crops
Must
Live in soil
But this little
Plant can
Grow in the air
With
Or without
Even sunlight
Like a dream
Like a god
This Is Not Lovemaking
Keep your eyes closed
Say nothing, baby
Make no sound, yeah
Stay still, honey
That’s more like it
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Now open your heart
As wide as your legs
And let me in
Does this hardened idea hurt?
Protest Unheard
I was born a bird, and
There is no doubt about it
But day and night
They keep me
In a huge crowded cage
Feeding me
With all kinds of compounds
Full of additives
Making my body far heavier
Than my wings are wide
Until I am butchered
On an assembly line
Never have I seen
What the sky
Looks like
Nor do I ever know
How to fly
Self-Making
As we keep eating
All kinds of gmos, drinking
All kinds of formulas, inhaling
All kinds of pollutants, taking
All kinds of chemical compounds
We are changing, developing
ourselves
Into a brand new species
A new generation
Of earthlings
Although we still remain
In this ridiculous human shape
Although we are
No longer nature-developed
But self-made scientific man
Proofreading
Although without either usage
problems
Or grammatical errors, your life
Is a long-winded sentence,
rambling
Along, with too much redundancy
So, if you keep editing it, you
will find
It is actually not a sentence
Not even a phrase, but a singular
Proper noun, which is capitalized
But holds no meaning on its own
Until one day, your death will
add an adjective
To this noun, often misspelt,
mispronounced
First Touch of Femininity: For
Chen Yeqiong
I do not remember how it started
No am I sure about how it ended,
but
It was on almost every evening
Of that summer, you would answer
My secret signal by waiting there
for me
Beside trembling reeds, on a
sandy dune
Wrapping my entire boyhood
With your girlhood, tightly
While I buried all the 13 years
Of my life between your bloated
breasts
Although we both held our breaths
In nervousness and tranquility
We had no more urge
Than to take a break
In each other’s teenaged
tenderness
Saying not a single word
Not even knowing how to make love
But just letting the breeze
flirting with our feeling
Between sleep and wake. That’s as
early
As half a century ago, on the
other side of
This world, until now you find
yourself called
Softly, in a foreign tongue after
your death
Wine
Cheers!
How about having another glass
Of wine, which I brew myself
Out of all my pasts?
Bottoms up!
A Modest Request
Give me a thin page
And I can use a metaphor
To lever up
The whole earth (soaked
So deeply
In human tears and sweat)
Still dripping blood
Down towards the depth
Of universe
First Potluck by Robot
Families
What a rich and grand dinner party here:
Look, this jug of wine, brewed with the
Human perms and blood, is brought
By the Vines; this huge plate of tongues
Of the sexiest women, is presented
By the Crows; this is a bowl of fried penises
Of teenage boys, looking like wishbones
Of aging eagles. There are also well-baked
Nipples of virgins; barbecued buttocks of
Kings and emperors; steamed brains of
Nobel prizewinners; pickled hearts of poets
And painters; prepared respectively by
Mr Hog, Ms Cucumber, Dr Rice, etc.
Yeah, they are all homemade dishes; none
Of them is a GMO, nor cloned or stem-grown
What If…
God is nobody but a little lucky survivor of
The last generation of earthlings, or a lost
Envoy dispatched by another civilization; man
Is actually a chimpanzee in frame, a hog
In tissue, and a frog in heart; the whole
Universe is no larger than a concept being
Formed in the brain of a mouse, whereas money
Is no other than a null number, fame a fading
Name, power a petty tower, and love a lust
In glove; indeed, what if there is a parallel
World where your other self is stalking you like
Your shadow, where you can become a god
In your own right; most important of all
What if you are it; what if now is then?
Looking at Each Other
I enjoy looking into the eyes
Of a dog, which show far more
Friendship than those of a
Fellow human, which I’d look afar
Away from, as they are always
Full of alert against me, against
Any other body, even a spirit
Exchange of Vision
Jumping into her gaze
Like a naked village boy
Into a local autumn pond
I see her vision full of
Fishes swimming around
Among dangling grasses
Along folded sunlight
Inviting My Father’s Spirit
Rarely did we get along, Dad, before
You gave us all up, and seldom
Did we even talk, so you never
Knew how I really felt about you
As a father, in particular, about your
Grooming habits: each time you
Returned from your office or trips
You skinned us off and washed all
Our clothes, sheets, towels, mops
Cleaning furniture (including
Every foot’s bottom), polishing
Lamp covers and cooking utensils
Though you often forgot to put them
Back in good and tidy order; true
I learned to love your cleanness
But never the way you were so busy
Doing all this like an old woman
Now you are taking a long break
Up there, (where everything is
Supposed to be perfectly clean); do
You enjoy watching me doing
Such things down here to keep
My home and heart both dust-free
Memo to Yuan Hongqi
Another thing I forgot to mention, Dad
Was I always believed you to be an
Extra-ordinary father, but in a highly
Embarrassing way: each time you saw
Me hanging around with my buddies
You kept saying this like a big broken
Gramophone: “Follow Chairman Mao’s
Teachings; Follow the Party’s great
Lead,” just as you drove me crazy
By trying to convert me into a true
Communist like yourself, even
When we happened to be eating
At the same table. Still remember?
You once forced me to kneel down
On the hard ground until I finished
Reciting Mao Zedong’s “Three Old
Essays.” It was then I began to defy
You blindly, to follow no other than
My own heart, in a boyish rebellion
Against your fatherly dictatorship
Against any other form of tyranny
To Whom It May Concern
Dear Sir/Ma’am, this is just to confirm
That though without a visa, this little paper
Dart bears the authentic signature of
My truer self, and set free according
To the laws of the virtual kingdom. If
It happens to fly through your shared
Space, or above your private site, I hope
You would be so kind as to let it pass
Instead of burning it. Please feel free to
Contact me at your end of the line, should
You have any concerns or questions.
Yours truly, Words Worth Digitalized
Echoing
All
waves of water
surge towards the shore, even
if they
are originated
in the
heart of the Pacific
Each light wave
is
trying to conquer darkness
at every
boundary between here and there
except the waves of my song, which may never
reach
any wall to produce
the
faintest echo
Private Talk: for Yuan Hongqi
Show yourself, Dad, I know you are around
Always trying like a true angel to protect
Me; let it be like those days when I was still
A teenager, but I will tell you all you wanted
To know about my feeling; for instance, I don’t
Like you to force me to recite Chairman Mao’s
Quotations, and I hope you would put Jin Yong
Rather than Karl Marx under my young pillow
Yes, let it be as if we were both younger,
healthier
Suffering from no ischemia, our family curse
But having plenty of blood flowing behind our
Yellowish chests; let it be that we have no secrets
As father and son, and work together to help
Our offspring survive and succeed in this degrading
World, so full of snakes, snares and snobs
Praying: Hallowed Be Your Name
All the gods created already
Or yet to be created soon
Powerful or powerless
I demand you! All the
Spirits and spectres
Drifting around here in both
Yin and yang worlds
Visible or invisible
I demand you – stars so numerous
In the entire universe as
The cells in my whole body
I demand you all, all of you
To join me in this foreign tongue
To pray, if ever praying is meaningful
For my fellow beings as a race
Epitaph
Blese be the man that knows my word’s worth
And curst be he that disturbs your bird’s birth
Shakespeare’s Definition of Man Recalled
Thou subtle, perjur’d, false,
disloyal man!
Thou art like a toad; ugly and venemous.
Thou art a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward.
A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.
Thy tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile.
Thou art like a toad; ugly and venemous.
Thou art a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward.
A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.
Thy tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile.
You scullion! You rampallian! You
fustilarian!
Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver’d boy.
Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch!
You starvelling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish–O for breath to utter what is like thee!-you tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck!
Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver’d boy.
Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch!
You starvelling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish–O for breath to utter what is like thee!-you tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck!
There’s no more faith in thee
than in a stewed prune.
Thou poisonous bunch-back’d toad!
Thou art unfit for any place but hell.
Thou are pigeon-liver’d and lack gall.
Your virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese.
Thine face is not worth sunburning.
Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after voyage.
You are as a candle, the better burnt out.
Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.
Thou poisonous bunch-back’d toad!
Thou art unfit for any place but hell.
Thou are pigeon-liver’d and lack gall.
Your virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese.
Thine face is not worth sunburning.
Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after voyage.
You are as a candle, the better burnt out.
Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.
A most notable coward, an
infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good
quality.
Transpositioning
All my peers prefer to be
grown-ups
So that they can smoke cigars,
drink
Whisky, stay online as long as
they like
Except me, for one, I’d rather
remain
Young as I am now, knowing
nothing
About reason, law, politics,
money, sex
My parents and uncles and aunts
are
Talking about all the time,
pretending
To be happy, changing their faces
like
Their clothes; oh yeah, I wish to
continue
Working with these jigsaw
puzzles, trying to
Find the missing pieces. Even if
i fail to find
The right thing for the right
place, nothing
Really matters, nobody really
cares. Anyway.
How Old Are You?
While every child yearns to
become a grown up
All adults wish to return to
their childhoods
Except me; would you be as young
Or as old as you really are?
Getting Newly Old
The other night, we were still
imagining
How to grow old together,
wondering what
Else to do besides making love in
bed
But now, both of us have become
really old
Older than our parents when we
were young
Younger than our children as they
get old
While you feel wind-dried inside
out, I find
Myself softened at both ends.
Indeed
In a cold night like this, isn’t
it nice
To have someone to stay close
enough with
And keep each other warm on this
bed
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